Clarence Thomas' Wife Calls Anita Hill To Ask for an Apology

[Reginald Hudlin]

from GAWKER:

Clarence Thomas' Wife Calls Anita Hill To Ask for an Apology

Nineteen years ago, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was barely confirmed by the Senate after a former colleague, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual harassment. So it's a little odd that Thomas' wife just called Hill to demand an apology.

Virginia Thomas, who, besides being the wife of the biggest jerkoff on the Supreme Court, is a Tea Party activist, must have been having a weird Saturday morning on October 9! Because around 7:30 a.m. she called up her old, you know, person whom she hates, at her (Hill's) home office in Waltham, Mass., and left the following message in what The New Yorker's Jane Mayer calls "a singsong voice":

Good morning, Anita Hill, it's Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day."

Uh. What? I mean: She was drunk, right? "Across the airwaves and the years"? Ginni Thomas was wasted at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday and got to drunk-dialing and for some reason she has looked up Anita Hill's phone number. This is weird even to the people who didn't believe Hill, isn't it? Also: "Pray about it?"

(Do you know The Ballad Of The Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings? It's a classic, in the sense that it is one of those things you should never, ever bring up unless you are completely aware of how everyone else in the room feels about it. In a nutshell, toward the end of Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation hearings in front of the Senate, testimony from his former colleague Anita Hill alleged that Thomas was, uh, basically, a huge pig who routinely did things like ask "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?" Hill (who, full disclosure, was totally f*cking right) was pilloried in the right-wing press and treated terribly by, among others, Senator Arlen Specter, at that point, was a Republican; Thomas was confirmed 52-48, and now it is One Of Those Things We Don't Talk About At The Dinner Table, like Religion and Money and Aunt Nicole's Accident.)

Hill, who is a law professor at Brandeis, mulled over the weird message for a week and turned the phone over to the campus police. "Ginny"—who's publicly said that Hill should apologize, but never, uhm, called her—has confirmed that she did leave the message a statement given to The New York Times:

"I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago," she said. "That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended."

Serious question: Maybe I am parsing the Ginny Thomas Saturday Morning Account-Settling a little too much, but what does she mean by "did with my husband"? This is like a Raymond Carver story, isn't it?! Though, Mayer says the message sounds "more adversarial than most peace offerings."

[Battle]

The gall of some people!  

Just heard NPR's radio show "Tell Me More"  hosted by Michel Martin this afternoon and she covers this issue in a discussion with Professor [Anita]  Hill's legal friends and how when they heard that thomas' wife called her office, everyone thought it was prank.  Y'know, the timing of this incident is dubious, at worst, considering we are just a mere 2 weeks before the mid-term elections.

Anyway, if anyone is to issue an apology, it would be me!
I remember those testimonies during those hearings, where I was and who was around me; before I even knew what the differences between the concepts of conservative and liberal movements (well, actually, I knew what liberal was) were, what it meant for the Supreme Court (5-4)  and why...   the whole situation that had broke out at the Senate just seemed to me like an angry, Black woman trying to bring down a Black man. I strongly believe that had something like that happened today with the advent of the internet being as popular now than 20 years ago, thomas would not have been confirmed, much less nominated.  

So here is my apology to Prof. Hill:

I would like to apologize to you, ma'am,  for thinking at the time that you were an angry Black woman trying to bring a Black man down.  Had I known then what I know now, I would've had a much more clear sense of what you were actually doing;  You were warning the American people of this charlaton about to take up space in one of the most powerful and (corrupt) highest court in the world and you wanted justice for a wrong that was done to you.

[Gooch]

The gall of some people! 

Just heard NPR's radio show "Tell Me More"  hosted by Michel Martin this afternoon and she covers this issue in a discussion with Professor [Anita]  Hill's legal friends and how when they heard that thomas' wife called her office, everyone thought it was prank.  Y'know, the timing of this incident is dubious, at worst, considering we are just a mere 2 weeks before the mid-term elections.

Anyway, if anyone is to issue an apology, it would be me!
I remember those testimonies during those hearings, where I was and who was around me; before I even knew what the differences between the concepts of conservative and liberal movements (well, actually, I knew what liberal was) were, what it meant for the Supreme Court (5-4)  and why...   the whole situation that had broke out at the Senate just seemed to me like an angry, Black woman trying to bring down a Black man. I strongly believe that had something like that happened today with the advent of the internet being as popular now than 20 years ago, thomas would not have been confirmed, much less nominated. 

So here is my apology to Prof. Hill:

I would like to apologize to you, ma'am,  for thinking at the time that you were an angry Black woman trying to bring a Black man down.  Had I known then what I know now, I would've had a much more clear sense of what you were actually doing;  You were warning the American people of this charleton about to take up space in one of the most powerful and (corrupt) highest court in the world and you wanted justice for a wrong that was done to you.

I feel you on that Battle.   I was thinking the same thing.     

[michaelintp]

from GAWKER:

Clarence Thomas' Wife Calls Anita Hill To Ask for an Apology

Virginia Thomas, who, besides being the wife of the biggest jerkoff on the Supreme Court ...

... Anita Hill alleged that Thomas was, uh, basically, a huge pig who routinely did things like ask "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?"

Reginald Hudlin ... from what you posted above, it is clear that "Gawker" is a complete moron.

The very worst thing that came out of those hearings were unsubstantiated allegations of a Thomas pubic hair joke and unsubstantiated allegations by Hill that Thomas commented on porno movies and that he was studly, without any suggestion that he was trying to induce her to have sexual relations.

As the reputable source Wikipedia states: "Anita Hill's accusations were viewed suspiciously due to their timing (only revealed during Justice Thomas' confirmation hearings) and the "he said, she said" nature of the discussions made privately between Hill and Thomas. Further cause for suspicion were her actions after the contested events: in addition to following him to the EEOC, after that job concluded she continued personal contact with him, both in public and in private. Her accusations could not be definitively substantiated or refuted. Thomas made a blanket denial of the accusations, claiming this was a "high-tech lynching". After extensive debate, the U.S. Senate confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52–48.

I guess we have never made jokes with our friends and colleagues. CERTAINLY after the Thomas Affair, we don't, for fear that some partisan tool will distort what happened in his or her pursuit of political ends, or possibly out of some petty spite. To the best of my recollection, Thomas never propositioned Anita Hill, he didn't "sleep" with her, they didn't have an affair (and as single adults, they had every right to).  I wish we could say the same about Bill Clinton, who not only did so while married, but actually perjured himself regarding his conduct in a real sexual harassment case, and was disbarred as a result.

So let's cut the crap, OK?

The truth is, Thomas and his wife have been forced to put up with this sh*t for 20 years.

Any pretense used to demean Justice Clarence Thomas is highly suspect, to say the least. I could use other adjectives, but what's the point. Most of the retards like Gawker who are critical of Thomas have never read his legal opinions.

Justice Clarence Thomas merits our respect. Why?  Because he is a man of legal principle.  The truth is that he is probably the most principled Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

Rather than looking to the result he wishes to reach, and moving backward from there to fabricate his reasoning, Thomas starts with the legal principles and follows them to their ultimate logical and proper conclusion.

For example, Justice Thomas wrote a brilliant and correctly reasoned dissent (opposing the Supreme Court's holding) in the 2005 case that wrongly upheld the power of the Federal Government to ban the growing of marijuana for personal use, despite the existence of a more lenient state law in California. Now, I doubt that Justice Thomas is a big fan of drug use and abuse. But that did not color his principled legal reasoning.

Here are some relevant passages from Gonzales v. Raich ... just in case some of you have never actually read anything written by Justice Thomas:

"Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers. ... By holding that Congress may regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Court abandons any attempt to enforce the Constitution's limits on federal power."

About the majority's ruling, Thomas aptly observes, "The majority is not interpreting the Commerce Clause, but rewriting it."

Also involved in this case is the "Necessary and Proper Clause," which was included in the Constitution to rein in the Congress even though the framers obviously couldn't enumerate every single law that could properly be passed:

"The Congress shall have the power ... to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers [previously enumerated], and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

Thomas writes: "The Necessary and Proper Clause is not a warrant to Congress to enact any law that bears some conceivable connection to the exercise of an enumerated power."

Finally, Thomas references Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's dissent, "Congress presented no evidence in support of its conclusions, which are not so much findings of fact as assertions of power," and Thomas concludes: "Congress cannot define the scope of its own power merely by declaring the necessity of its enactments."

Though the majority decision was terrible, the Thomas dissent injects into the record a point that is crucially important:

"... it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals--that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government--that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens' protection against the government."

[Reginald Hudlin]

This is the funniest post you've ever done, Michael.  

Meanwhile, back in reality:

from THE NEW YORK TIMES:

October 2, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
The Smear This Time
By ANITA HILL
Correction Appended

Waltham, Mass.

ON Oct. 11, 1991, I testified about my experience as an employee of Clarence Thomas’s at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I stand by my testimony.

Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee — that I was a “combative left-winger” who was “touchy” and prone to overreacting to “slights.” A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

Justice Thomas’s characterization of me is also hobbled by blatant inconsistencies. He claims, for instance, that I was a mediocre employee who had a job in the federal government only because he had “given it” to me. He ignores the reality: I was fully qualified to work in the government, having graduated from Yale Law School (his alma mater, which he calls one of the finest in the country), and passed the District of Columbia Bar exam, one of the toughest in the nation.

In 1981, when Mr. Thomas approached me about working for him, I was an associate in good standing at a Washington law firm. In 1991, the partner in charge of associate development informed Mr. Thomas’s mentor, Senator John Danforth of Missouri, that any assertions to the contrary were untrue. Yet, Mr. Thomas insists that I was “asked to leave” the firm.

It’s worth noting, too, that Mr. Thomas hired me not once, but twice while he was in the Reagan administration — first at the Department of Education and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After two years of working directly for him, I left Washington and returned home to Oklahoma to begin my teaching career.

In a particularly nasty blow, Justice Thomas attacked my religious conviction, telling “60 Minutes” this weekend, “She was not the demure, religious, conservative person that they portrayed.” Perhaps he conveniently forgot that he wrote a letter of recommendation for me to work at the law school at Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa. I remained at that evangelical Christian university for three years, until the law school was sold to CBN University (later Regent University) in Virginia Beach, Va., another Christian college. Along with other faculty members, I was asked to consider a position there, but I decided to remain near my family in Oklahoma.

Regrettably, since 1991, I have repeatedly seen this kind of character attack on women and men who complain of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. In efforts to assail their accusers’ credibility, detractors routinely diminish people’s professional contributions. Often the accused is a supervisor, in a position to describe the complaining employee’s work as “mediocre” or the employee as incompetent. Those accused of inappropriate behavior also often portray the individuals who complain as bizarre caricatures of themselves — oversensitive, even fanatical, and often immoral — even though they enjoy good and productive working relationships with their colleagues.

Finally, when attacks on the accusers’ credibility fail, those accused of workplace improprieties downgrade the level of harm that may have occurred. When sensing that others will believe their accusers’ versions of events, individuals confronted with their own bad behavior try to reduce legitimate concerns to the level of mere words or “slights” that should be dismissed without discussion.

Fortunately, we have made progress since 1991. Today, when employees complain of abuse in the workplace, investigators and judges are more likely to examine all the evidence and less likely to simply accept as true the word of those in power. But that could change. Our legal system will suffer if a sitting justice’s vitriolic pursuit of personal vindication discourages others from standing up for their rights.

The question of whether Clarence Thomas belongs on the Supreme Court is no longer on the table — it was settled by the Senate back in 1991. But questions remain about how we will resolve the kinds of issues my testimony exposed. My belief is that in the past 16 years we have come closer to making the resolution of these issues an honest search for the truth, which, after all, is at the core of all legal inquiry. My hope is that Justice Thomas’s latest fusillade will not divert us from that path.

Anita Hill, a professor of social policy, law and women’s studies at Brandeis University, is a visiting scholar at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College.

Correction: October 4, 2007
An Op-Ed article on Tuesday, about Clarence Thomas’s accusations against Anita Hill, incorrectly described the history of Oral Roberts University’s law school. The school was transferred in 1986 to CBN University, now known as Regent University, in Virginia Beach, Va., not to Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va.

[Reginald Hudlin]

And why does Thomas appear at partisan political events, and his wife take money from political organizations?  Have they no sense of how to behave in the office his holds?

Every woman I've talked to about this story asks if Virginia has a drinking problem. 

from AOL NEWS:


Why Did Virginia Thomas Call Anita Hill After All This Time?

Nearly two decades after their "she said, he said" public battle, Anita Hill and Justice Clarence Thomas are back in the news. The reason? Thomas' wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, left a voice mail message seeking an apology from Hill, who accused her husband of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.

The bizarre incident has sparked speculation as to why Ginni Thomas decided to contact Hill after all these years.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Jansing & Company" Wednesday morning, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson said, "One gets the sense this is just something that's been eating at her for nearly two decades."

It's not hard to imagine that the confirmation hearings might still eat at Thomas' family members. Writing about his mother in his 2007 memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," Thomas noted: "Between the day President Bush announced his intention of nominating me to the end of my testimony, she lost more than thirty pounds as a result of stress and worry."

Other pundits have been less generous than Robinson in speculating why Ginni Thomas might have picked up the phone.

Journalist Karen Hunter, also appearing on MSNBC, countered, "It'll probably come out that she was in an Ambien stupor -- or maybe she's taping a reality TV show."

The call to Hill comes on the heels of other news about Ginni Thomas, who has become a major player in politics since founding a nonprofit "Tea Party" organization called Liberty Central Inc., which, in part, targets President Obama's "tyranny" and tries to influence the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Ginni Thomas, an attorney, has for more than three decades worked in Washington for conservative institutions such as Hillsdale College, the Heritage Foundation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But until founding Liberty Central in January, her activism was not widely known.

Even before the voice mail, her involvement with Liberty Central sparked controversy, as its 501 (c)(4) tax status means it is not required to disclose donors, a point that some critics view as a potential conflict of interest for her husband. The New York Times noted that the group's first contributions of $500,000 and $50,000 came from undisclosed donors and recently editorialized that, "Justice Thomas needs disclosure to know if either of those donors is a party in a case before the Supreme Court or has an interest in a party."

Typically, justices and their spouses eschew such political activity, in order to preserve the appearance of nonpartisanship, and of transcending the pettiness of politics.

According to her bio on the group's Web site, "Ginni, the 'proud' Nebraskan, is a fan of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham and other talk radio hosts. She is intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully. She also enjoys motor homing and watching '24'."

That's the present, this is the past: During the exhaustive, nationally televised Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, Hill accused him of harassing her sexually when he was her boss. Thomas was ultimately confirmed to the high court, but the accusation divided the nation and left scars that have clearly not healed. At the time, Justice Thomas described her testimony as "a high-tech lynching."

Ginni Thomas' Oct. 9 voice mail reignited the story.

According to a transcript published by ABC News, Ginni Thomas' message asked Hill to "consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband." She also asked Hill to "give it some thought and certainly pray about this." Hill, a professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., called campus security, which then called the FBI.

Through a spokesman, Ginni Thomas acknowledged making the call, and described it as "extending an olive branch to [Hill] after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago."

For her part, Hill said in a statement released to the AP that she thought the call was inappropriate.

"I have no intention of apologizing because I testified truthfully about my experience and I stand by that testimony."

[michaelintp]

This is the funniest post you've ever done, Michael.  

If I didn't know better, I would think you were being dismissive, Reginald. 

Certainly I would not have reacted so strongly if Gawker had not used the adjectives he did to ignorantly describe Justice Thomas.

In any event, I gather you don't agree with principles that Thomas laid out in Gonzales v. Raich, the marijuana case. In what way is his legal reasoning flawed, in your opinion?

[Curtis Metcalf]

I thought this thread was about Virginia Thomas inexplicably calling Anita Hill out of the blue to ask for an apology.
Not an ad hoc defense of Justice Thomas' tenure on the court.

By the way, it seemed that you were being dismissive of Ms. Hill there:

The very worst thing that came out of those hearings were unsubstantiated allegations of a Thomas pubic hair joke and unsubstantiated allegations by Hill that Thomas commented on porno movies and that he was studly, without any suggestion that he was trying to induce her to have sexual relations.
...

I guess we have never made jokes with our friends and colleagues. CERTAINLY after the Thomas Affair, we don't, for fear that some partisan tool will distort what happened in his or her pursuit of political ends, or possibly out of some petty spite. To the best of my recollection, Thomas never propositioned Anita Hill, he didn't "sleep" with her, they didn't have an affair (and as single adults, they had every right to).  I wish we could say the same about Bill Clinton, who not only did so while married, but actually perjured himself regarding his conduct in a real sexual harassment case, and was disbarred as a result.

So let's cut the crap, OK?

The truth is, Thomas and his wife have been forced to put up with this sh*t for 20 years.

Definition: Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination, in the United States, that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Sexual harassment occurs when one employee makes continued, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, to another employee, against his or her wishes.

According to a current issues update from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sexual harassment occurs, "when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment."

I think Ms. Hill spoke eloquently on the issues in the op-ed piece Reginald posted.

[michaelintp]

Actually, Curtis, the subject of the thread is the totality of Gawker's rant, posted by Reginald, part of which I reacted to.

You can be sure that if Justice Thomas were a liberal/left-wing jurist, nobody on this forum would have any interest in demeaning him.

[Curtis Metcalf]

I understand that's what pushes your buttons, Michael. However, the title of the thread seems self-evident.

[michaelintp]

I understand that's what pushes your buttons, Michael. However, the title of the thread seems self-evident.

I see.  So when a Forum Member posts an article that makes several points, one is only permitted to address the point in the title to the thread, even though explicit in the article is an attack on the entire judicial career of Justice Thomas -- which is of course the real motivation his leftist critics have for demeaning him, and for attempting to block his confirmation in the first place.

Look, I too think it is odd that Ginny Thomas called Hill after all these years, even though no doubt Hill's accusations, no matter how lame or distorted they may have been, bother her and have bothered her for years.

Had the article posted by Reginald only cited the facts about the call and Hill's response (as most articles did in reputable news outlets) my response would not have been as strong.  But the author went much further than that, dismissing the entire judicial career of the Justice and demeaning him in a most negatively stereotyped fashion (which Gawker seems quick to accept as fact, I bet without ever reading any of the Justice's opinions). The real agenda of the unnamed author "Gawker" is self-evident. He likely disagrees with the belief in an enduring Constitution that Thomas uses as his starting point in all his Constitutional analysis, the Originalist approach, and wishes to disparage a Justice who consistently uses that approach in a principled fashion. If you believe that Gawker is not motivated by a political agenda here, well, then you are kidding yourself.

[Curtis Metcalf]

I was merely responding to your request for input on whatever ruling you cited as a member of the forum expressing a preference. I was not expressing forum policy in any official capacity. Sorry for the confusion.

Officially, you can, of course, discuss whatever you want if people want to go there with you.

Personally, I couldn't care less about Gawker's alleged political motivation. He doesn't like Thomas; you do. Whatever. He was quick with the bizarre news of Mrs. Thomas' call which is being reported all over the news now. 

And, honestly, Michael, we really don't know how valid Ms. Hill's accusations are, do we?

While we're here, what do you think of her (Mrs. Thomas) going against court tradition by her involvement in partisan politics?

[michaelintp]

The last time I checked, Ms. Thomas did not, and does not, waive her Constitutional Rights under the First Amendment, which rights include the right to engage in political speech, and anyone who suggests that her rights should in any way be curtailed is highly suspect, in my view. 

What do you think about President Barack Obama giving the finger to Presidential Tradition by scolding the Supreme Court Justices, in a most condescending manner, to their faces, in his State of the Union Address?

[Curtis Metcalf]

The last time I checked, Ms. Thomas did not, and does not, waive her Constitutional Rights under the First Amendment, which rights include the right to engage in political speech, and anyone who suggests that her rights should in any way be curtailed is highly suspect, in my view. 

So you support it? To be clear, no one is saying that her involvement is illegal, just of questionable propriety. Although this 501(4)C business may make it pertinent.

[Curtis Metcalf]

By they way, getting back to the thread topic, here's a related story:
Lillian McEwen breaks her 19-year silence about Justice Clarence Thomas